Vincine has had times in the past of dropping out for a few weeks at a time. I have no idea what she does, but I think it's some kind of administrative type work that requires a moderate amount of travel.

Dango's officially gone, no, say it aint so? Is he just taking a break or what (come back D, we need you)? I liked KJosh but he was pretty intense, in some of his last posts he was getting angry that some of the folks here werent smelling what he was stepping in, I do hope he returns, that kid had some serious intelligence. Vincine's been around the board but she's not as active as she once was, Ive always liked her posts.

There have been a couple splinter groups that have attracted some of the regulars away but most of them pop up here and there, I hope they stay involved because they are some of the stronger allies in the fight to keep our 2A alive. A few others that I really enjoyed staged a coup and forgot that NOTDKU owns the site and has the big delete button, they havent been back since and wont be unless they sneak in.

FTF isnt a snooty collectors site or a raving extermist hangout, Ive tried those and keep coming back here cause it reminds me of what I love about America. I came to here originally because I found FTF to be a very diverse and interesting crowd and thats why Ive stayed, it remains both of those to me. I rarely add friends to my list of trustees in life but Ive made some really solid acquaintances here and plan on hanging around for a while.

Summertime isnt the best for participating in an online forum anyway. In NY, we only get about 5 months of descent weather and that often means Im doing not typing, I think many people take a break from this and do that here and there. Yesterday I got my new FTF sticker for re-upping as a Supporting Member so the cheap Kraut I am, I will get my $18.50's worth out of the next year!

Ive probably got about the thickest skin of anyone I know, that began 3 October, 1980at 2am in the morning, fort Gordon GA when MY Drill Sgt jumped on our bus and yelled, "My heart pumps pure s*it for my Dead Grand Mother, WTF do you think it pumps for you? Get the F off my bus, move, move, move!!!". Since that day ive been nearly impermeable to offense from buttheads. We have some pretty strongly opinionated folks here and they can cut deep and wide, i wish they would check their grenades at the door before they enter FTF but some wont. I do consider FTF family and just like real families, disagreements and squabbles can turn into game changers, my only request is folks think about things a second before they write them, dont bash cause thats not a conversation then, its just a pissing contest and sooner or later, the only one who will talk with you is the voices in your head!

Good advice at the end, Webley! I always count slowly to ten before posting a short post to avoid hard feelings. Oh, who am I kidding? I never have a short post!!

I joined a bunch of forums about three years ago and started reading posts. It amazed me how militant some of the posts and members were about subjects that should be discussable. Every thread degenerated to name calling and nothing was ever solved. I found myself constantly returning to FTF because of the intelligence and manners of those contributing and the level of knowledge from people like C3Shooter and others like him was truly experienced and valuable. After six months of evaluating a dozen forums, I paid my Supporting Member dues to FTF, dropped all the others and have never regretted it! This forum and these people are truly my home.

Over the last several years,FTF has had some swinging doors on it's core membership. We lost a big group of outstanding supporting members a couple years ago,and this place hasn't been the same since.
And then Dillinger left,and that was to me,one of the biggest loses to this entire forum.

I know I'm not interested in FTF anywhere near what I used to be,it just doesn't have the same feeling around here anymore.

Downsouth gave up on social media in general. Got tired of the hatred I guess. I'm still in touch with him.

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I just touched base with downsouth. He sent this response:

Hey ellis good hearing from you.

Mostly I just got tired of social media. Deleted facebook found myself not too interested in posting on ftf. After 4500+ post in a year I guess all who care know my views on things and trying to convince people of anything grows less important in my life all the time.

The wife and I bought a used boat a few months back and have taken up crappie fishing at Sardis do interest have changed also. We are starting to catch fish pretty good.

I often wonder how the folks at ftf are doing, I hope well. I guess I got tired of writing and reading about life on this device and are more interested in living life while I can. At 53 who knows how long that could be.

Tell all I said hello and they will probably hear from me when the crappie stop biting. I will forward some pics.

Thanks for checking in on me and feel free to post any or all of this email on the thread. ds